When the Whigs came into power by the election of 1840, President Harrison discussed the question of patronage and its abuse, not merely as tending to strengthen one political party against the other, but as building up the power of the Executive against the Legislative Department.
Blaine discusses President Harrison's views on the impact of patronage on political power.
Share
More from James Blaine
In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
In my judgment our sole authority for the acts which we have done during the last four years was the authority communicated to Congress by the Constitution to suppress insurrection.
He was a lawyer in full practice, a man of the highest integrity, without fear and without reproach.
The two schools in short marked the dividing line between the radical and the conservative.
Other voices in this conversation
